CHAPTER XXV
MR. ALCANDO DISAPPEARS
For several seconds Blake and Joe stood there—without moving—only listening. And that strange noise they heard kept up its monotonous note.
"Hear it!" whispered Joe.
"Yes," answered Blake. "The brass box—the box—he had!"
"Yes," whispered Joe. All the suspicions he had had—all those he had laughed at Blake for harboring, came back to him in a rush. The brass-bound box contained clockwork. Was it an alarm after all? Certainly it had given an alarm now—a most portentous alarm!
"We've got to find it!" said Blake.
"Sure," Joe assented. "It may go off any minute now. We've got to find it. Seems to be near here."
They began looking about on the ground, as though they could see anything in that blackness. But they were trying to trace it by the sound of the ticks. And it is no easy matter, if you have ever tried to locate the clock in a dark room.